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Miami Dolphins Talking Points: Team needs to find a way to keep Mike Nolan, and Chad Pennington not happy with treatment of Tony Sparano

Even though general manager Jeff Ireland is still here and Stephen Ross hopes that next season won’t be a rebuilding year, many changes are inevitably coming to the Dolphins. A new head coach will want to bring his own assistant coaches, training staff and players to fill out next year’s roster.

But it would behoove the Dolphins to make sure that Nolan, the defensive coordinator, returns next year. For the second straight year, his unit has carried the Dolphins and is one of the strongest in the league, ranking fifth in points allowed (18.9 per game) and 12th in total defense.

NFL Network’s Jamie Dukes said the Dolphins need to hire an offensive-minded coach – someone like Jon Gruden or Brian Billick – and keep Nolan and the defensive staff intact. Other top coaches like Bill Cowher and Jeff Fisher have defensive backgrounds and likely would want control over that side of the football.

“The defense is what you want to keep in place,” Dukes said Tuesday. “If I’m the owner, I’m keeping Mike Nolan the best I can, and I’m just fixing the offense.”

In that vein, Billick makes a lot of sense for the Dolphins. Not only is he widely respected as an offensive mind, he would have no problem keeping Nolan on board. Nolan was Billick’s defensive coordinator in Baltimore from 2002-04, and the defense finished in the top-6 in points and yards allowed in each of his final two seasons.

Given his successful track record as a defensive coordinator and the number of teams and coaches Nolan has worked with since beginning his NFL coaching career in 1987, he has a better chance than most people in his position of being retained next year. But with the way his defenses have performed the past three seasons – his 2009 Broncos defense finished seventh overall – Nolan may receive another opportunity to be a head coach next year, despite an 18-37 record as the 49ers’ head coach from 2005-08.

Former quarterback Joe Theismann thinks the Dolphins should consider giving him that opportunity.

“I hope they don’t look past Mike Nolan to be the coach of that football team,” Theismann said. “He knows the personnel, and look at how well that defense plays this year without much support early on.”

Frankly, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll deserves to return next year, too, given his budding relationship with Matt Moore and the way his offense has shown tremendous improvement over the last six weeks.

But keeping Nolan and his staff intact next year should be among Ross’ and Ireland’s top priorities.

2. Chad Pennington not happy with the treatment of Tony Sparano.

Pennington’s weekly appearance on the Dan LeBatard Show (6 p.m. Tuesdays on 790-AM) has quickly become must-listen radio. In yesterday’s show, Pennington, the former Dolphins quarterback who is now a Fox analyst, was not happy with how Ross and Ireland have treated Sparano over the past year.

First, he said he was upset about the decision to fire Sparano with three games left in the regular season.

“Sometimes, certain decisions don’t make sense,” Pennington said. “This isn’t college, where you have to get your coaching staff in place so you can recruit. There are plenty of candidates out there and you can certainly have preliminary talks with some of these candidates while the season is going on, especially this late in the season.”

“This just doesn’t bode well for the team at all. I think you’re bailing out. Either (fire him) early or late. You don’t do it in the middle. That makes no sense, unless you’re trying to evaluate a potential candidate.”

Pennington was asked if Sparano was betrayed by Ireland this past year when Ireland and Ross flew to California to interview Jim Harbaugh, and Pennington agreed. Pennington said Ireland should have stood up to Ross and refused to get on the plane with him.

“I know Jeff probably doesn’t want to hear that, and I hate to say that, but I can only look at the actions,” Pennington said. “Jeff probably was put in a bad position by Stephen Ross when they went to go talk to Jim Harbaugh, but at some point in time as a man you got to look another man in the eyes and say, ‘I know you’re my boss, but I don’t agree with this and I’m not going through with it.’ And so I think from that point on there was certainly some tension between Jeff Ireland and Tony Sparano, and rightly so, because of the actions that took place.”

Pennington said that Ross had no excuse for going behind Sparano’s back last January.

“I don’t care if this is your first time being an NFL owner. You treat people a certain way,” Pennington said. “Stephen Ross was always nice to me, we always had great conversations. But when things like this happened like it happened in the offseason, that really frustrates me. Because I’m not a wealthy business owner, I’m not a billionaire, but there are certain ways that you treat people whether you have a dollar or 10 billion dollars, and I just didn’t agree, and I’m being totally honest.”